The Effects Of Regulatory Focus And Outcome Frame On Moral Judgement

As a new perspective of studying motivation theory, the regulatory focus theory has raised the attention of folks in the academic circle upon its conception.In daily life and work, people would oftentimes make a diverse range of decisions, while within the ordinary types of decision are moral judgment.Previous researches on moral judgment generally focus on the development and cognitive mechanism of it, with the result that few discussions are made as regards the role of motivation.In view of this fact, in this research,from the perspective of motivation,two important yet interconnected motivation theories,namely,the regulatory focus theory and the regulatory fit theory, are applied in the study of moral judgment which is of great theoretical value and realistic meaning.At the outset of the research, a preview of the research progresses of the moral judgment,regulatory focus theory,regulatory fit theory and their relevant fields are conducted.Based on previous research data, the research is dedicated to probing the influences of regulatory focus and Outcomes Frame on moral judgment.In the research, the subjects college students make judgments on moral dilemmas. Experimental study method is adopted to probe the influences of chronic regulatory focus and situational regulatory focus on moral judgment, and on this basis the regulatory fit effect in moral judgment is further investigated.The research is carried out in three experiments. With paper-and-pencil test, the first experiment has preliminary verification of the influence of chronic regulatory focus on moral judgment.In the second experiment, situational regulatory focus is activated by tasks of recall report and pen-and-pencil maze to probe the influence of situational regulatory focus on moral judgment. In the third experiment, optional two-and-two combination of regulatory focus, promotion focus and prevention focus with outcomes frame,acquisition frame and loss frame is adopted to probe the influence of regulatory focus and outcomes frame on moral judgment based on the first and second experiments. The following results are acquired through analysis of the experiment data:Compared with subject with chronic prevention focus or situational prevention focus,subjects with regulatory focus are more likely to make utilitarian moral judgment. While the experiment is carried out under the acquisition frame, subjects with promotion focus make more moral judgment than those under the loss frame, and the scenario is quite the opposite when the subjects are with prevention focus.The research verifies that regulatory focus influences moral judgment, while the fit of outcomes frame and regulatory focus has regulatory fit effect over moral judgment.